


Best Served Cold

by enchantedsleeper



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Book 4: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Fred and George are the best brothers to have, Gen, Harry is an honorary Weasley, Post-Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-29
Updated: 2018-12-29
Packaged: 2019-09-29 22:59:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17212463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enchantedsleeper/pseuds/enchantedsleeper
Summary: “C’mon, Freddie,” George says suddenly, sotto voce. “Sooner the four of us get out of here, the better.”It hadn’t been the right moment, as they were exploring the Dursleys’ comfortable house in the dead of night, to plant a well-timed trick or a trap and risk blowing the whole operation – and getting Harry into even more trouble with his sadistic relatives. Better just to get Harry out and away from that place.But two years later, Fred and George got their chance for revenge.(A follow-up toeast, west, home's bestby taizi, set during the summer before Harry and Ron's fourth year)





	Best Served Cold

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [east, west, home's best](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14787410) by [taizi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/taizi/pseuds/taizi). 



“I’ve called in a favour with Addington at the Floo Regulation Panel,” Arthur Weasley tells his family over dinner, “and he’s fixed it so that Harry’s Muggle relatives will be connected to the Floo Network for just an hour on Sunday, from 5 o’clock to 6 o’clock. That should give us more than enough time to collect Harry, and to stay for a bit of a chat with his aunt and uncle. We’ll have to be rude and say that we can’t stay long – it wasn’t possible for Addington to connect the fire for any longer without arousing suspicion. I’m sure they’ll understand.”

Ron snorts loudly into his casserole with derision, which then turns into an actual coughing fit as some of it accidentally goes down the wrong hole. George reaches over cheerfully to whack him on the back.

“Ron, honestly,” says Molly severely. “Slow down and chew your food – you’re not a caveman.” She shakes her head at Arthur. “I just don’t know about this, Arthur dear. It sounds terribly risky. Wouldn’t it be better for you just to collect Harry via side-along Apparition?”

Arthur shakes his head. “That won’t do for his trunk – it’s much too large,” he tells his wife. “And the boys were awfully keen to come along and help – isn’t that right, boys? Ron hasn’t seen Harry all summer.”

“Well, he’ll be seeing plenty of Harry for the rest of it, for heaven’s sake,” says Molly, but Fred and George’s eager agreement drowns her out.

“That’s right, Dad!”

“Ever so keen.”

Molly shakes her head again, but subsides. Bill frowns, as if he’s thinking something over, then says,

“I suppose Harry’s aunt and uncle do _have_ a fireplace? A lot of Muggle houses don’t. They’re considered a bit of a safety hazard. Muggles don’t have Flame-Freezing Charms, you see,” he adds as an aside to Molly, who looks bewildered as to why a fireplace would ever be unsafe.

“Oh, yes, they’ve definitely got one,” says Arthur cheerfully. “Fred and George said they saw a bit of the rest of the house the summer before last.”

“Yep, it’s right there in the living-room,” Fred confirms, earnestly sincere. Molly is appeased, but Ron knows that look on his brother’s face, and he stares at Fred as the rest of the family goes back to their dinner, and the conversation turns (yet again) to Percy’s new job at the Ministry. George winks at him.

No sooner have the plates been cleared away than Fred and George slip away up to their bedroom. Ron follows closely on their heels.

“You two are planning something, aren’t you?”

“Whatever gave you that impression, little bro?” George asks airily.

“I want to help,” Ron insists.

“Three’s a crowd, Ronald,” Fred replies. “And the less you can say you knew about it, the better.”

Ron grabs onto George’s arm, pulling him back before he can cross over the threshold into his and Fred’s room, and George recognises that same frustrated, desperate expression that he saw right before they went to break Harry out of his aunt and uncle’s house two summers ago.

Ron has had a few more chances to play the part of older brother since Ginny’s ordeal in the Chamber of Secrets. Nothing about that has been at all simple or easy, and each one of Ginny’s brothers has had to grapple individually with the ways that they let her down that year – missing every sign; seeing her retreat into herself, becoming a shadow of the fierce sister that they’d once known, and failing to realise just how _wrong_ it was.

Ron was the one who’d rescued her, though (and Harry, of course), and he had a better idea than the rest of them about what she’d been through. He was the one who’d rounded on Fred the first time that he’d cracked an off-colour joke that made Ginny burst into tears (“Too bloody soon, Fred”) and the one who’d dragged her out into the orchard to practice some Quidditch passes and get her out of her room (Charlie had given up his broom without a word of protest).

Yes, Ron has always been the younger brother who was born to be an older brother, and though Ginny is his sibling by blood, Harry is a Weasley too.

Which is why Fred and George need to do this.

“Listen,” George says seriously. “We’ve got one shot at this. If it comes off, I don’t expect the Muggles will be too eager to welcome us back to their home any time this century.”

“Not that we want to set foot into that horrid place,” adds Fred.

“And if we had our way, Harry wouldn’t be going back there either.”

“But for now – a little bit of Weasley vengeance will have to do.”

“And does it have to do with…” Ron nods behind them, to where Fred and George’s untidy room is half-visible, with scorch marks on the ceiling and the distinct smell of gunpowder lingering in the air.

“Ask us no questions, Ronniekins, and we’ll tell you no lies,” George responds. “Now if you’ll excuse us, we have a bit of final prep to do.”

“Fine,” says Ron, resigned. “I get it – you don’t need an accomplice. But whatever it is? I hope it’s a good one.”

“When have we ever let you down, Ronniekins?” asks Fred. He sounds careless and off-handed, as if none of what they’re talking about really matters. But Ron gives him a true grin, the kind of expression he doesn’t see too often on his brother’s face any more, now that he’s a surly teenager, and George thinks that Ron is finally beginning to understand the lengths to which all of his brothers will go for him.

And for their other brother, Harry.

* * *

“So, George,” says Fred as soon as the door is closed.

“So, Fred,” George replies.

“Which is it going to be?”

The two boys consider the colourful inventions they’ve been prototyping: all of them sweets, the better to be concealed innocently about one’s person – or slipped to unwitting enemies. Canary Creams – a custard cream that will turn the consumer into a large canary. Very temporary, and overall pretty harmless once the feathers have moulted off. Puking Pastilles – these are an early prototype, and so far the effects can vary between intense nausea from an unspecified source, uncontrollable vomiting, and (occasionally, for some reason) uncontrollable venting from the er, other end of the body. So, tempting.

Or, for true enemies, there’s the Ton-Tongue Toffee, which causes the victim’s tongue to grow steadily in length until it reaches a size and weight equal to the victim’s body mass.

George looks at Fred, and his hand closes around the brightly-coloured toffee.

“This one,” he says.

* * *

Everyone assumes that Fred and George chose Muggle Studies in their third year because it would be an easy class, what with them having a dad who works for the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office. They’re half-right.

But if they’d wanted an easy ride, Care of Magical Creatures would have done just as well; it was all about feeding Krups and drawing diagrams of Bowtruckles, that sort of thing. Piece of cake. So was Divination, which they did choose, in order to make up the required minimum number of OWL subjects, and because neither of them was going to pass up the chance to piss about and make fun of Trelawney with Lee all year.

No, Fred and George took Muggle Studies because, unlike most of the wizarding world, they aren’t above seeing what they can learn from their non-magical brethren. And because until they come of age, sometimes they need to use Muggle methods to get what they need – like using a hairpin to pick the lock on a trapped twelve-year-old’s bedroom door.

All of which is to say that Fred and George knew exactly what an electric fireplace was when they saw one, creeping down the stairs to retrieve Harry’s trunk during their dead-of-night escape, and taking the liberty of poking around the Dursleys’ plush house a little. They knew perfectly well, or at least strongly suspected, that it wouldn’t work as intended if connected to the Floo Network. That more likely than not, someone might have to use a Blasting Curse to get it out of the way when the Weasleys arrived at the other end. Which would be a terrible shame for those Muggles and their neat, tidy, sterile house.

Of course, there isn’t any gain without some pain, as Fred and George know all too well. It pays to remember that as they stand crammed into the boarded-up chimneypiece at Number Four, Privet Drive, George squashed painfully up against the wall with Fred’s elbow poking into his side. Before much longer, Ron arrives, his foot digging into the back of Fred’s shin, and it’s very apparent that they’re going to have serious oxygen issues if they have to stay here much longer.

“What are we doing here?” Ron asks. “Has something gone wrong?”

“Oh, no, Ron,” Fred replies, heavy on the sarcasm. “No, this is exactly where we wanted to end up.”

It isn’t hard to sound annoyed about it – after all, they would have avoided being squashed up inside a Muggle fireplace if they possibly could have. But in reality, everything _is_ going exactly according to plan. Fred feels the weight of the big, fat bag of Ton-Tongue Toffees in his pocket and thinks about the awful, greedy, bullying git on the other side of the fireplace.

The Dursleys have had this coming for a very long time. They’re about to learn what happens when you mess with a Weasley.

**Author's Note:**

> I read _east, west, home's best_ this morning thanks to a rec from a friend, and instantly fell in love. I adore canon gap-fillers, friendship fics, brotherly affection, Harry as an adoptive Weasley - basically, everything in it.
> 
> Then I started to think about Fred and George's prank on Dudley in _Goblet of Fire_ in light of that fic, and how, creeping around the Dursleys' house in the dead of night, they might well have spotted the electric fireplace. Maybe they knew exactly what it was.
> 
> Maybe revenge is a dish best served cold. ;)


End file.
